


Your Voice Still Lingers Here

by houseofphan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Car Accident, DAN AND PHIL - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Sex, Phan - Freeform, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:20:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6374560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofphan/pseuds/houseofphan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If home is where the heart is, then you've got mine."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Read with tissues near by.
> 
> Also, I wrote this fic for a friend of mine who recently passed away in a car accident. It's hard living without you but I'm trying to learn.

Dan let out a small sigh as he paid the taxi driver, stepping out of the cab and retrieving the flowers he had purchased along with a little plastic toy hamster.

"You're in my prayers," the driver says to Dan, giving him a sympathetic smile and Dan has to refrain from rolling his eyes at the cliché.

"Thanks." he mumbled back, shutting the door and beginning to walk to his desired destination. It's not like Dan didn't appreciate that courtesy; he did. It just a tad overused. Or maybe he was just tired of the same reaction because that's all he's heard ever since it happened. Of course the viewers were constantly tweeting him asking if he's done okay and his parents along with his friends have left multiple voicemails expressing their concerns. Strictly voicemails, though. And occasionally he would shoot an email to his parents to let them know he wasn't some anything stupid - though, the urge to do so was definitely there and it was strong, yet, he's somehow managed to keep holding on despite how badly he's aching to let go so he could be with his boyfriend and get rid of the suffocating feeling he's had lately.

Other than the occasional message he sent to his mum, Dan hasn't had the energy to talk to anyone or see anyone. This is the first time he's stepped foot out of their flat ever since the incident and Dan was already shaking with anxiety. This was too fucking weird. Phil is usually right there beside him, making horrible puns and jokes, and even though Dan wouldn't have admitted it then, it had always relaxed him.

That's a lie. Just Phil's pressence had the power of soothing Dan from a panic attack. Just Phil's pressence had the power to make him smile so wide that it would hurt his cheeks, but that never stopped him. Phil's fucking existence had the power of making Dan's heart warm.

This is the first time Dan had finally gathered enough strength to actually visit Phil since the accident - It's already been four months and he didn't even go to the funeral either. It's not like he didn't want to, he just knew that he couldn't handle it. Hell, right now he felt like turning back around and going home instead because he could already feel the overwhelming sadness weigh down his heart the closer he got. But it was something that needed to be done. The emptiness would still have a home in his stomach either way. 

Looking at Phil's tombstone, it was only a cruel reminder to Dan that he wouldn't be able to pretend like it didn't happen because the concrete proof of Phil being gone was right in front of him. He wished he would have stayed home; he preferred being in denial. 

Dan wants to know if there's a word for when you're sitting at the bottom of a rollercoaster and you realise that the climb is coming,  
that you know what the climb means, that you can already feel the flip in your stomach before you've even moved? Is there a word for that? Dan thinks there should be. 

He would use it to describe how he felt right now.

Anxiousness, perhaps, but Dan has felt anxious before and this felt nothing like that.

You can only fit so many words in a letter. Only so many in a phone call. To Dan, only so many into a space before he forgets that sometimes words are often used to replace for things other than filling emptiness.  
It is hard to build a body out of words- Dan has tried.

Phil was such a big part of him that Dan no longer remembers who he was or who he used to be before all of this happened. He feels like he's been ripped away from his one and only true reason for existing. He feels alien. He feels lost. He recalls the day they first met; Dan's brain thought distantly of a puzzle piece he'd found as a child, lost and lone in the gutter outside his house. He never could figure out what the bigger picture had been, laying in the grass and wondering what box it had fallen from. Phil was his lost puzzle piece; interlocking indelibly into Dan's story. Some corner piece–necessary and vital to the bigger picture. 

 

Dan had finally accepted his fate and shook hands depression, grief, loss, and emptiness. He figures he may as well learn to be their friends if they're going to be living with him for the rest of his life.

"Hi, my love." Dan speaks, the tremble in his voice strong enough to cause an earthquake. He places the flowers down to rest against the stone. He takes a seat right next to it, his side pressed against the cold, solid rock and he closed his eyes to imagine that it was the real thing instead. He rested his head against it carefully, keeping his eyes closed so he could hold the mental image of leaning against Phil. "I'm sorry I took too long to see you. I'm here now."

He didn't know what to say even though there were so many things on his mind. 

He decides to just let words flow from his mouth without thinking too much about it. 

"The first time we slept together, the butterflies inside my stomach evolved into a swarm of bees trying to sting every internal organ, but quieted into a flock of bats hanging upside down from the ledge of my heart once you touched my hand. The next morning, they woke up dizzy and disoriented; you said you could hear them moving about inside my ribcage, but at least the butterflies were gone.

"Phil, do you remember that day whenever I couldn't stop crying and you said that you wished you could take the sadness away so I wouldn't have to feel it again. I smiled. I told you, 'Neither of us can save the other, but we can still plant flower seeds inside the grooves of one another's wrists to remind ourselves not to open up the soil of our lifelines too early.' The next day, the garden was filled with twice as many chrysanthemums than before." This is the first time Dan smiles in months.

"You loved me like an arsonist who burns down their childhood home just to watch all the ugly memories crumple into ash. I was your one and only good memory and you were mine.

Inside our old flat, there are two names scratched into the windowsill. They weren't ours, just the work of some strangers who lived there before us, but we always held out hope that maybe one day we'd find some place to call our own. The one we have now would have been it, Phil. I'm sorry we didn't have the chance to do that before you had to leave..." his smile leaves almost as quickly as it appeared.

"Every time you fell asleep after sex, I traced the tree rings of your lifelines sunken into each palm and pretended they were maps leading to some buried treasure. I only found out later that the treasure was you. I'm sorry I didn't realise that sooner. I wish I had treated you like gold every day instead of dirty carbon.

You said, 'The first time we met in person, you walked like a question and I wanted to do everything in my power to answer until I got it right.'

We never did find the right answer together.

There are scars lodged inside both hemispheres of my brain that have been tattooed there since we met. Unlike most scars, these are good ones. Each one was my favourite colour and they didn't hurt getting inked in. But now every time I pass the tattoo parlor, my cerebral cortex shouts at me to get them removed since they remind me too much of you."

Dan took a deep breath, trying not to think about how it was kind of selfish. Air should only be for people who want to live.

"I loved you like bone-breaking; it hurt at first, but the recovery period was extraordinary.

Remember when we tried to take photographs of one another's favourite body parts before we realised it would involve getting under the skin? I miss you.

Remember when you told me you wanted to buy me a bouquet of sunrises for Christmas, but you couldn’t find one that matched the exact shade of my eyes?" Dan laughs softly and he's pretty sure he would have felt his heart flutter at the memory if it wasn’t aching so terribly. "I told you it was the thought that counts, so you spent the last six months of our relationship roping one in every morning." a wave - no, a tsunami of sadness flooded him at that memory because it wasn’t that long ago. That wasn't supposed to be the last six months.

He takes a deep breath, tears spilling down his cheeks uncontrollably at this point as he sighed in annoyance at himself, bringing both of his hands up to rub his eyes with the heels of his palms. "Fuck. Sorry," Dan apologises even though he knows it's redundant.

Dan finally manages to compose himself, knowing that it won't be long before he breaks down again but he's trying so hard to keep it together. He continued, "I whispered 'everything' into your ear fifty-three times before we went to sleep every night so your dreams would echo the words that we never had the courage to say..." he paused, swallowing thickly. "I probably should have just went ahead and told you, yeah? I wish I did."

"I loved you like that old tale of the tree falling in the forest without anyone else around and whether it made a sound...every time I looked at you when we were alone, I questioned whether anyone else would be able to see what we felt for each other," Dan admitted, realising it was all pointless but he wanted to talk to Phil and he was finding some sort of comfort in this.

"I should have appreciated you more." he murmured, clenching his jaw harshly and shaking his head at himself as he thought about it. He was getting angry at himself because yes, he /should/ have. He really should have. But he didn't. Tears spilled down his cheeks again and he bowed his head.

He forced himself to keep talking, not letting his self hatred get the best of him at this moment. He was going to finish. "My mum always told me being in a relationship with you was too much of a risk because of our viewers. I started doing riskier things to prove her wrong."

Silence.

"Why did you have to leave, Phil? This isn't - waking up without you in the mornings feels like an effort. Living without you feels like I've been asked to compete in a running marathon. It feels like a lot of work. But I remember, in bed, two weeks before you were taken away from me, you murmured 'I'm sorry' into my spine like you could apologise for the way your absence would cripple me. Like you knew you would be gone soon...

Even your shadow made me want to get drunk at times - I was jealous of the way it followed you and was always able to touch the soles of your feet, so I downed a shot every time it crossed the floorboards.

We couldn't afford Hawaii or Italy so we vacationed inside one another's bodies. I planted palm trees along your vertebrae and swam into the shallows of your hipbones. And you twirled me like spaghetti until we both fell to the floor, exhausted. Every day, I always seemed to discover a new part of you that I'd never seen before.

You loved me like you'd never find anyone else. Thank you. I never wanted anyone else but you. I know I wasn't the best at showing it at times, but I loved - - /love/ you like you're oxygen," Dan decided to end his rant with that, sitting there silently for roughly twenty more minutes before reluctantly standing up to leave his soulmate's side. He reached down to fix the flowers a bit and sat the plastic hamster next to them, stepping back and letting his eyes roam over the painful evidence that Phil was actually gone. "I'll be back tomorrow around the same time. I love you, Phil." he said, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to retreat.

Not even ten steps away from Phil's grave, Dan gets an odd feeling like someone is watching him and turns back around. His eyes roamed intently over the cemetery, trying to see if anyone was visiting as well but there was no sight of anyone. Turning back around to leave once more, Dan begins walking away and he almost laughs at himself for being paranoid until he hears a distinct 'I love you, too, Bear' right in his ear, causing his knees to go weak and a sob to escape his lips.


	2. Follow me on tumblr and send in requests!

I'm really tired of writing sappy poetry despite how much I like it. Request things on my tumblr! @properties-of-friction   
Please. It would help a lot. ;u; thank you! x


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